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This Quarterly Review highlights key trends, transactions, and competitive shifts in the U.S. private water market. Bluefield’s team of water experts tracks mergers and acquisitions (M&A); service contract awards; and federal, state, and local policy developments on an ongoing basis to provide the most reliable and up-to-date insights for clients addressing opportunities in water.
In this Quarterly Review:
- Utility deal flow falls to lowest in a decade. The water utility sector experienced a significant slowdown in the first half of 2024, with Bluefield reporting only 24 approved deals in Q2—the lowest Q2 total since 2019.
- Public pushback to privatization, Act 12, sparks reforms in Pennsylvania. Since the 2016 passage of Act 12, which enables the fair-market-value sale of municipal assets, more than 21 local water and wastewater systems have been privatized in Pennsylvania.
- EPA targets chronically noncompliant systems with proposed restructuring rule. On 30 May 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency introduced the ‘Water Systems Restructuring Assessment Rule’ (WSRAR) to target the improvement in quality and service of chronically noncompliant water systems. The WSRAR would require state regulators to provide restructuring alternatives for systems failing to deliver on federal drinking water standards.
- A suitor emerges for Aquarion in Connecticut-based RWA. The South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority (RWA) has become a highly visible candidate to acquire the Aquarion Water Company in the months following Eversource’s announcement to divest its water subsidiary.
- Eliciting strong pushback, Illinois’s two leading IOUs file rate increase requests. In January 2024, American Water and Essential Utilities, through their respective subsidiaries Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois, filed rate increase requests for their approximately 464,000 combined connections in the state.
